Posts Tagged ‘negative’

All right, let’s check in with some recent clients of San Francisco-based Singer Associates, Public Relations, Public Affairs.

But first, let’s review some vocab at the Wiki:

“A negative pregnant(sometimes called a pregnant denial) refers to a denial which implies its affirmative opposite by seeming to deny only a qualification of the allegation and not the allegation itself. For example, “I have never consumed cocaine while on duty” might imply that the person making the statement had consumed cocaine on other occasions, and was only denying that they had done so while on duty.”

Whew! That was the title of yesterday’s Ed Lee Campaign presser in Chinatown yesterday.

So basically, Senator Leland Yee sucks because his campaign released this yesterday.* Oh, and there was something about the City College campus, but I’m not sure exactly what the beef against Leland is about that.

And there was this – a call for mayoral candidates to “put out facts and not opinion,” but I’ll tell you, that book was chock-a-block full of facts, actually. And it had 107 endnotes to boot.

And let’s see here, oh, suggesting that City Family member Mohammed Nuru has issues, well, thems is fighting words, partner. Even though, well, you know.**

It looked like this:

Click to expand

Apparently, if you find anything at all wrong with San Francisco since the current administration began in 1996, if you think that there’s anything that could be improved, you’re a “hater.” Quoth mayoral spokesmodel Tony Winnicker:

“Herrera’s office conducted an investigation in 2004 into the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners, or “SLUG,” the city-funded nonprofit Nuru headed from 1994 to 2000, in the midst of a series of San Francisco Chronicle news reports about potentially illegal electioneering activities. Nuru maintained close working ties to SLUG after going to work for Lee in 2001, according to witnesses, and also oversaw SLUG’s $1 million-per-year street-cleaning contract with DPW. The City Attorney investigation found that while at DPW, Nuru directed SLUG employees who were paid with city funds to conduct campaign activities in the 2003 municipal and runoff elections for Mayor and District Attorney—in clear violation of local law prohibiting city-funded nonprofits from using those funds to campaign for candidates or ballot measures. Witnesses also testified that Nuru had instructed city-funded SLUG workers to engage in similar campaign activities while he served as SLUG’s executive director, for a 1997 ballot measure backed by then-Mayor Willie Brown, and for his 1999 re-election campaign.

Following the 2004 City Attorney investigation, an audit by then-San Francisco City Controller Ed Harrington found a raft of financial improprieties involving SLUG and DPW. The Controller’s review revealed that SLUG mismanaged city grants and contracts, and was overpaid by city departments, including DPW, an amount totaling nearly $72,000. The audit additionally found that SLUG failed to pay more than $643,003 in payroll taxes, and that DPW improperly used SLUG’s contract with Public Works to purchase a $62,508 portable building for DPW’s use. Though Lee reportedly instructed Nuru to conduct no further business with SLUG, neither the 2004 City Attorney’s investigation report nor the similarly damning City Controller audit appears to have resulted in disciplinary action against Nuru at DPW. SLUG was formally debarred from city contracts for two years for violating Section 12G.1 of the San Francisco Administrative Code, which prohibits city funded organizations from using any of those funds to participate in, support, or attempt to influence a political campaign. The organization is now defunct.

Conspicuously absent from last week’s announcement that Mohammed Nuru would take over as DPW’s acting director effective Aug. 15 was interim Mayor Ed Lee. Though the appointment was announced in a written statement from the acting City Administrator, such appointments require “the concurrence of the Mayor,” according to San Francisco City Charter, § 3.104. A report noted that while Nuru’s salary was not finalized, his predecessor’s annual salary was $204,750. Nuru’s most recent previous annual salary as DPW’s Deputy Director of Operations was $193,000.”

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 28, 2011 — JP Morgan Chase announced today that it will not charge its customers a $3 monthly debit card fee after testing the charge in Wisconsin and Georgia. The bank announced that it would drop the idea following negative reaction from its customers.

Consumers Union, the nonprofit advocacy arm of Consumer Reports, today commended Chase for its decision and reiterated its call on Bank of America to end its plan to charge a $5 debit card fee beginning in 2012.

“Consumers Union has heard from thousands of consumers across the country who are outraged that Bank of America is instituting the $5 monthly debit card fee,” said Norma Garcia, manager of Consumers Union’s financial services program. “It’s time for Bank of America to listen to its customers who are saying loud and clear: drop the fee or we’ll drop you. All banks that are considering debit card fees should ditch those plans.”

SunTrust has also started rolling out a similar debit card fee and Wells Fargo has been testing one in select markets. Earlier this month, Consumers Union called on Chase, Bank of America and these other banks to abandon plans to charge customers a fee for debit card purchases.

“It’s unfair for banks to stick consumers with a monthly fee just to use their own money,” said Garcia. “The banks that charge debit card fees risk losing customers who are fed up with financial institutions that got bailed out that are now turning around and hiking fees.”

Consumers Union has published a set of tips for consumers who want to switch banks.

Saturday, November 5, has been dubbed Bank Transfer Day by grassroots activists upset with rising bank fees, including the new $5 debit card fee that Bank of America will start charging its customers in 2012. Consumers are being encouraged by Bank Transfer Day organizers to switch their accounts to credit unions or community banks on that day.

SOURCE Consumers Union”

Oh, there’s an updated version of this release. See it after the jump.

SAN FRANCISCO (Oct. 18, 2011) — City streets and public works continue to deteriorate under interim Mayor Ed Lee, according to a new report published today by the Controller’s Office, extending Lee’s decade-long record of mismanagement and neglect as the appointed bureaucrat in charge of San Francisco’s infrastructure. Today’s bimonthly Government Barometer[1] mirrors a highly critical survey released just two weeks ago that found San Francisco’s satisfaction rate with the current quality of its infrastructure to be the lowest among five benchmark cities to which it was compared. Lee’s history of lax oversight of streets, sidewalks and public works projects was also the subject of a devastating independent management audit of the Department of Public Works that the Board of Supervisors first commissioned in May 2005, while Lee was DPW director. That audit was released in 2007.

Today’s new Government Barometer identified negative trends in the City’s maintenance of streets and public works in terms of the percentage of street cleaning requests responded to within 48 hours, which have worsened both since the previous reporting period and as compared to the same period last year. A negative trend was also observed from the previous reporting period for the percentage of graffiti requests on public property responded to within 48 hours.

“For the last decade, Ed Lee did an abysmal job as the person in charge of San Francisco’s infrastructure,” said City Attorney Dennis Herrera. “The Budget Analyst’s audit proved it in 2007; the streets survey proved it again two weeks ago, and the new Government Barometer proves it once again. Ed Lee’s record of failure is why most city streets are dirtier than ever, and in desperate need of major repairs. Now, San Franciscans need to pass a quarter-billion dollars for a streets bond, to finally accomplish what Ed Lee didn’t.”

Lee was DPW director from 2000 to 2005, and until January of this year served as City Administrator, a role whose major duties under the City Charter include coordinating capital improvement and construction projects, and appointing and removing DPW directors. As such, Lee is more responsible for the current state of San Francisco’s infrastructure than any other city official. Lee’s decade-long record contrasts starkly with his new campaign promise to be an “infrastructure mayor” who will fix San Francisco’s “roads, schools and parks.”

On October 6, 2011, the San Francisco Controller’s Office published its final report of the biennial City Survey for 2011[2], which found that:

* San Francisco had the lowest satisfaction rate with the quality of its infrastructure among five benchmark cities to which it was compared: Boston, New York, Oakland, San Jose, and Seattle.

* Overall satisfaction with San Francisco city streets, sidewalks, and infrastructure rated a woeful 31 percent, according to the survey — far below other cities. In fact, San Francisco’s rating for infrastructure was also lower than both statewide and national averages.

* San Franciscans were least satisfied with the condition of pavement citywide, with nearly 44 percent of residents grading city performance “poor/failing,” and another 38 percent describing it as merely “average.” Only 18 percent rated infrastructure “good” or better.

The new Government Barometer and streets survey from two weeks ago come as San Franciscans begin voting on a proposed $248 million bond for road repaving and street safety.[3] The nearly one-quarter-billion-dollars in new bonded indebtedness is required, according to proponents, because half of San Francisco’s 850 miles of streets — together with public structures that include bridges, tunnels, and stairways — need major repairs and upgrades.

Both the Government Barometer and streets survey also mirror a devastating independent audit of DPW that the Board of Supervisors commissioned in May 2005, while Lee was DPW chief. Even before Budget Analyst Harvey Rose’s final 269-page DPW Management Audit[4] was published in January 9, 2007, then-DPW Chief Fred Abadi responded that he “came to DPW after your audit had begun,” and that the report’s 120 recommendations “will prove useful to me as I continue to reengineer parts of the Department.” Abadi agreed and accepted all but three of the Budget Analyst’s 120 recommendations.

Among major findings of the performance audit’s of DPW under Ed Lee:

* DPW’s overall mismanagement, inefficiency and uncollected revenue combined to waste more than $5 million in taxpayer funds.

* DPW-led projects were routinely mismanaged, over-budget, and late — and city street repair projects were late by a shocking 172 days, on average.

There’s some wiggle in there, logicwise. I mean, Ed Lee isn’t responsible for what people were saying back in 2010 or nothing. But the quotes from Ed himself are like a couple MK XIVs hitting Run Ed Run below the metaphorical waterline.

(I could use a little subtitling there, towards the end as the sound is quite poor, but anyway.)

Would you call this a negative ad? Keep in mind, it’s not against Ed directly. It’s against Run Ed Run, and that’s a much easier and more deserving target.

Artist’s conception of the former vice president encased in the densest form of carbon known to man:

Just one treatment of this double carbon material will take the equivalent of 1200 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. The only downside will be the expense of a slightly oversized coffin. The upside is that Al Gore, Jr. will be the most severely carbon negative person in recorded history.

A relieved Hill & Knowlton spokesperson confided to one reporter that this announcement will lay to rest the controversy over the greenhouse emissions of Al Gore’s house, for some reason an issue of almost daily concern to the D.C.-based House of Flack.